Betfair

On-line Gaming Pioneer Leverages Sun’s Eco Responsibility Portfolio to Mitigate Impact of Rising Power and Cooling Costs

Based in London, U.K., Betfair is the world's leading online betting exchange, a concept it pioneered. Driven by cutting-edge technology, Betfair serves more than 6,600 page views and processes up to 1,000 transactions per second. Betfair is the trading name of The Sporting Exchange Ltd.

Customer Challenges

Support meteoric growth of on-line gaming business
Reduce rate of increase of power and cooling expenses
Minimize environmental impact in line with corporate ethical principles

Solution

In the face of skyrocketing energy costs, Betfair's corporate commitment to sustainable computing makes good business sense as well. Sun servers, storage, software and services are helping the on-line gaming company save power and cooling costs while continuing to support its ever-growing volume of users.

Business Results

Grew from serving 2 billion page impressions a week to 4 billion page impressions a week in the same physical datacenter space
60% reduction in power and cooling for storage
Delivering on corporate commitment to eco responsibility
Reduced the power required to run 60 databases from 16 kilowatts of power to 3 kilowatts.

Products and Services

Story Details

“Paper doesn’t grow on trees” is the sign posted by every copy machine, encouraging Betfair’s employees to avoid waste and recycle. That’s just one example of its commitment to eco responsibility, a commitment that runs deep in the corporate DNA and touches every part of the organization.

The IT department is no exception. In fact, Betfair’s IT operations feel the pinch of rising energy costs more than any other department. “When you’re planning a major datacenter deployment—as we are constantly these days—the biggest challenge is no longer bandwidth or space, it’s power,” says Rorie Devine, the company’s CTO. “Site selection today is heavily influenced by the cost and availability of electricity. Countries with abundant resources—geothermal in Iceland, nuclear in France, hydroelectric in a number of places—are becoming increasingly attractive locations for expansion. Only Sun addresses power costs as the main criteria for datacenter site selection.”

" Sun’s energy-efficient computing is such a powerful proposition because you get more computing power and less energy usage. It’s like they’re offering you a race car that goes faster and uses less gas. Why wouldn’t you buy it? "

— Rorie Devine, Chief Technology Officer, Betfair

Betfair is growing at a breathtaking pace. The company’s Web traffic is up 33% in six months, now running at four billion page impressions a week. With that rate of growth, cheap power is not the complete answer: It’s just as important to minimize the use of power within the datacenter. And that’s where Sun is adding value daily at Betfair, starting with servers based on CoolThreads technology.

“Sun’s CoolThreads technology generates more CPU cycles while using less power,” says Devine. “Nothing like it has existed before. We replaced racks and racks of Dell servers with Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers. The result is more computing power in the same physical space and significantly less power—a double win for us.” Thanks largely to the savings of the Sun eco responsible servers, Betfair has achieved 200% usage growth - all within the same datacenter space.

Server virtualization using the Containers feature of Solaris 10 contributes to higher server utilization and thus also reduces power consumption. “Containers allow us to run multiple applications concurrently with little risk of the crossover effects you see with other virtualization technologies,” Devine says.

Some in the IT business argue that eco responsibility involves trading off power savings and performance. “That’s crazy talk,” Devine responds. “Sun’s energy-efficient technology is such a powerful proposition because you get more computing power and less energy usage. It's like they’re offering you a race car that goes faster and uses less gas. Why wouldn’t you buy it?”

Minimizing power and cooling costs also involves an often-overlooked area: storage. “Storage arrays burn a lot of power,” explains Devine. “Through virtualization, we’ve eliminated 40 terabytes of physical capacity, reducing storage power and cooling costs by 60%.” Betfair’s storage infrastructure is based on a Sun StorageTek 9985 system, which features built-in virtualization capabilities.

Building an energy- and space-efficient datacenter isn’t just a matter of plugging in the right gear. It requires careful and thoughtful design of the facility and IT administration processes. Sun Professional Services has the expertise and experience to contribute to that effort, according to Devine: “Betfair has a good relationship with Sun on a lot of levels. We can tap into their experts for design and implementation to take full advantage of Sun technology. Sun Professional Services helps shape our thinking and get the efficiencies we’re looking for.”

Devine assesses the development of eco responsibility in the IT industry: “Sun was the first major company to deliver better business performance that was actually good for the environment as well. These initiatives were and are visionary and innovative. Now other vendors are jumping on the bandwagon, but we can see right through them. Sun led the way. It’s fantastic the way Sun championed eco responsibility and energy-efficient computing.”

There’s a personal side for Devine. “Betfair works hard to minimize its environmental impact, and that’s important to me personally as well. I have a young son and I want to the world to be a great place for him to grow up in.”